The Dresden Files
by Slim Dim
Summary: An adaptation of the TV series plot lines if they were set after Proven Guilty and in the book univerce.Spoilers for Dresden TV series. So far only Birds of a feather hope to do future episodes.


**The Dresden Files**:

**Chapter 1: Birds of a Feather.**

I was dreaming; again. My dreams were never as pleasant as you might expect.

I was a small child again huddled under the covers watching the wardrobe door as it slowly cracked open, a vestigial darkness, like that from before the beginnings of time oozed slowly from the gap. I screamed, my dad came running, my heart skipped a beat to see him again it did every time I had the dream, I missed him.

"It's ok." He was telling my dream self. "There's no such thing as monsters."

Then he, my dad pulled a small leather bound package from his the bed side table.

"This was your mothers." He said unwrapping a pentacle pendant. "She said it protected her. Gave her a light in the darkness."

Then I stirred, or rather was stirred by the figure bouncing on the foot of my bed.

Figure! On my bed? I gathered power ready to lash out at the monster that was invading my apartment.

"Come-on Harry!" Molly protested. "Wake up?"

I let the power of the strike dissipate and tried to pull my haggard thoughts together. Why was Molly Carpenter here? Oh yeah she was my new apprentice. Not that it explained how she got in, past the wards and the reinforced door that I now struggled to get open.

"How? Wha…" I started and gave up. I not very articulate first thing in the morning.

I closed my eyes and thought for a minute.

"Molly, how did you get in?" I asked pulling my robe on.

"The builders let me in." She explained patently in that kind of voice you use on small children or badly behaved dogs.

Oh yeah my door was finally being replaced, after being battered by Zombies a while back.

I left Molly with the stove and some eggs to make breakfast while I went for a cold shower. No Molly Carpenter didn't affect me that way, despite trying sometimes, my shower just didn't do hot water, the boiler begin maid after the nineteen hundreds had a tendency to screw up around magic like most other gadgets, and some how I thought that burning the place down would not go over well with my landlord.

I came out the shower to a plate of cooked eggs, cooked meant that Molly was getting better with the wood burning stove that I used.

After breakfast we descended into the lab where bob was out of the skull and floating around in patterns in the air.

"What?" I started. Then remembered Bob I had let bob out last night for a run and a romp in Mister my gargantuan cat. In fact I'd been out last night, meeting a potential client at the diner down the road and, oh god my car, I'd left my car at the diner.

"These equations are very precise and if you walk through them I'll start belting out show tunes from the sixteenth centaury." Bob's voice floated from the mist in front of me. It wasn't until he mentioned it that I noticed that bob's mist from was floating into a Quazy Latin equation. One I was sure I had seen before.

"Have you seen my car keas?" I asked hunting around the lab for them. I was sure I'd been working in the lab after I got back from the diner, sans the blue beetle.

"Here they are Harry." Molly said waving a bunch of keas she had picked up off one of the tables that lined the walls.

As I snatched the keas from Molly's hand I racked my brain for where I had seen the equation before. Finally giving up I asked.

"I was something I was working on with Justine, back in the day." Bob said from inside the skull. "You know from before you…" Bob was cut off as I threw a notebook at the carved skull sitting amidst paperback romance novels. "I call it the 'Dom Box'. It's like a supernatural jack-in-the-box; designed to store magical energies and when you open it, Pop goes the Weasel!"

"I've got to go get my car." I tolled molly as I maid my way back up the ladder into my basement apartment. "Don't touch anything."

My car, the mighty Blue Beetle that has survived attack from zombies, hit men, and animated tree monsters was apparently not immune to Chicago's parking attendants and was clamped.

"Damn-it." I muttered, kicking ineffectually at the yellow metal, I briefly considered trying to blast it off with magic but the mood I was in I would probably take half the car with it. "Why me?" I implored the gods of traffic as I pulled the parking fine ticket off the windshield and stuffed it into the pocket of my duster.

"Are you Harry Dresden?" A small voice piped up from behind me. I turned to see a small boy, he couldn't have been more than ten years old brandishing my yellow pages add. It now read:

"Harry Dresden: professional wizard and detective, daemons, ghosts, or lost property all in a days work!" Followed by my usually disclaimer. "No parties, love potions, never-ending pierces, or entertainment."

Bob had convinced me to give the old add an overall to, in his words, make it more appealing. I preferred the old one myself, but at least it had shut Bob up.

"How did you find me?" I asked quizzically, the add gave the address for my office which was a couple of blocks away.

"You're a Wizard right?" The boy pressed.

"Look kid, I don't do parties, and I don't teach magic." Ok so the last wasn't entirely true any more but my brand of magic, unlike my dad's couldn't be learned. I started back down toward my apartment.

"Wait." The boy protested. "I've got monsters. And if you don't help they'll kill me and my mum."

"Why would they do that?" I asked patently, every child thinks there are monsters in the dark, most grow out of it, I just learned they were real, go me.

"I don't know. But I'll pay you five thousand dollars to find out."

"And where are you going to get five thousand dollars from?" I asked patently.

The boy pulled a wad of hundred dollar bills from his back pocket. If it had been a cartoon my eyes would have spun to reveal dollar signs at the sight of all that cash, as it was I had to stop my jaw from dropping to the grubby pavement. Where the hell had the kid got all that money from?

"Put that away." I snapped. It may have seemed harsh but waving that kind of cash around was bound to attract attention. "Come on then." I lead the boy into the diner, if he was offering to pay me the least I could do was here him out.

"Ok kid." I sad when we were stead at the same table I'd met Mr Gundershaul the pervious night.

"Scott." He corrected.

"Ok Scott. I highly doubt monsters are out to get you or your mum." I sipped my coffee.

"Why?" Scott asked with all the impertinence of a young child.

"Because, monsters for the most part, don't exist." I'm a treble liar.

"These ones do!" He protested. "I've heard them, clicking and scratching outside my window."

"Look kid, I'd love to take your money, believe me I would, but I couldn't live with myself knowing I'd taken advantage of an imaginative kid who cashed in his collage savings."

The boy just looked up at me liked I had crushed his last hope for freedom. "You've got to help me."

I didn't know what to say, I relay wanted to help him, but there was nothing I could do against imaginary monsters, and taking his money would be completely wrong. I stood up and walked off. It hurt to leave, but what choice did I have.

"What choice did I have?" I protested to Bob and Molly. "I am not taking his money."

"Look." Bob said. "What if his fears are real? You would never live with yourself if something happened to him."

"Why do you suddenly care so much?" I snapped at Bob.

"Because, if something happens to him you'll feel responsible and I'll spend the next eight months having to listen to your self fladualtion."

Molly just walked up behind me and smacked me across the back of the head. "Don't take his money, but do the right thing and help him Harry." She snapped, readying another blow.

"Ok, ok." I knew when I was out numbered, although most of the time that didn't stop me.

"You could get in touch with the wardens, use you new contacts to see if the counsel knows anything." Bob suggested. "I wonder how Luccio's getting on with that tasty new body of hers." Molly cuffed the skull for me.

Bob was right, Luccio might be able to tell me if there was anything in the boys past, if one of his ancestors were a practitioner, if he was. The counsel kept tabs on that sort of thing. All the better to kill them if they stepped out of line. And the new body she had been given by a body snatching necromancer last year was easy on the eyes.

I went up stairs and rang the number I had for the warden central offices and fumbled this months keyword from my notebook. I was surprised when Melissa a young warden I had met recently picked up on the first ring.

"Hey Harry how's it going?" She asked after the necessary Latin was out the way.

"Yeah I'm fine, look can I get a favour." I asked crossing my fingers and hoping that the flirting that Bob had noticed last time we had met would work in my favour.

"Sure Harry what is it?"

"I need you to check the records, see if there is anything on Scott and Sheryl sharp. A kid and his mother?" There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment, I imagined her eyes rolling back into her head as she communicated telepathically with the Archive, or Ivey as I called her.

"Sorry, nothing, in the records on her." She finely said.

"Nothing in the records." I related to Bob and Molly back in the lab. Molly was playing idly with a chess piece that I had been using with Little Chicago, a scale thermatalugical model of the city I had spent most of the previous year building. I had used the chess piece to track a wayward golem half way across the city after getting a couple of its hairs, it had been quite fun really, and not exploded which was always a bonus.

"Not that that means much." Bob quipped.

"We should at least go over and tell the boy that he's fine." Molly said grabbing her coat off the table.

"I you stay here." I pointed to Molly. "Bob can take you through the basics of thaumaturgy, "I'll go and speak to the boy."

I didn't go striate to Scott's house, mostly because I didn't have his address. So instead I went to my office in search of a phone book printed after the industrial revolution.

I was in luck, there was only one Scott listed in the book, Mrs S Even better. I pulled out my note book and jotted down the address in pencil, I don't even go so far as to trust pens these days.

I grabbed my leather duster from the coat rack and was about to leave when the door burst open, and to my astonishment Scott rushed in and clung to my legs.

"There out there! Monsters!" He cried into my jeans.

I maid soothing noises and patted him on the head until he let go.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him. Pouring myself a mug of stale coffee.

"I saw them, the monsters." He repeated, this time in a less frantic tone.

"Where?" I asked pulling my note book to make my self look more interested, or professional or something.

"At school." He answered.

"Did you get a good look at it? Could you describe it to me?" I asked patently.

"I didn't see much. I was just a black shape." Oh joy, that's a lot to go on.

"Come on kid, let's get you home before your mother gets worried." And tries to get me arrested. I finished silently. The boy nodded. So I pulled my duster on and picked up my new staff, once again I had managed to destroy my staff, it was becoming a bad habit, although I relay liked the new one, I had seen an old hock stick in the corner of an antic store, a battered old wooden thing, which I had spent some weeks carving sigils and runes into and investing power in, I was rather impressed with it, it also meant that if I wanted to I could join a street hockey game.

The Sharp house was in the same area as Michaels, nice expensive houses with farley large front yard and white picket fences. The door was answered by a slender dark haired woman, with an angular face.

"Oh Scott, where have you been?" She exclaimed to her son ignoring me, and pulled him into the house. Then she seemed to notice me. "Oh sorry sir. What are you doing here?"

"Harry Dresden mam." I introduced myself. "Scott found me in the phone book and thought I could help with his monsters." I handed her my card by way of explanation.

"Oh I'm sorry he bothered you sir." She blushed.

"It's ok mam, all in a days work." I replied.

She seemed to recover then. "Oh but where are my manners, do come in for a cup of tea."

I sat at a small white kitchenette while Mrs Sharp made tow cups of some sort of herbal tea.

"This isn't the first time, he's done this." She began, she didn't need to tell me all this but perhaps it helped her, gave her something to hide behind. If only all my interviews were quite so forthcoming. "I've taken him to doctors, therapists."

"It hasn't helped." I prompted.

She shook her head. "It works for a time but then…" She seemed lost for a moment. "It starts small, the way someone looks at him, or a sound, and then it just builds and builds. Then someone like you shows up." She ducked her head as if trying not to insult me. It relay didn't bother me, I'd heard it all before anyway. I still apologised though, I couldn't not, not to such a nice, kind woman.

"Can I ask a delicate question?" She nodded. "Is there a man in the picture?"

"There used to be, but he wasn't interested in being a father." She ducked again embarrassed. "The therapists are all over that one. Scott is at sea, he's trying to control his landscape. Everyone is very well educated and no help." She put the teacup down with enough force to slosh hot tea all over the table. "Sorry Mr Dresden, it just makes me so angry that nothing seems to work."

"Has anyone tried a little magic?" I asked. She looked at me for a moment like I had sprouted a second head, if I wasn't used to it I might have looked over to check for Harry two popping out of my shoulder. "Perhaps something more otherworldly would be more on his level." I pushed. If for no other reason than to get he to stop looking at me like that.

"Oh what the heck." She threw up her hands. "It can't hurt to try."

Five minutes later we were sat in their living room, I had managed to get a piece of paper off Mrs Scott and pulled a marker out from the pocket of my duster. I started by drawing a small circle on the paper and closed it with a snap of power, I could feel the errant power caught in the circle flow with the lines of the pen, fall into shape and gain in strength from that ridged shape, finally I pushed my own power into the ward I had been making to hold it, and reinforce the structure I had imposed up it. It was no where near as powerful as the wards I had on my house, but then they could blow up a person, it should however be enough to deter any magical entity and reinforce the threshold against them.

"There we go." I said straitening in my chair.

"So what dose it do?" Scott asked.

"It's a protection symbol, if you inscribe this in copper then you can use it to deflect magical energies. We don't need to make you bullet-proof or anything but if you hang this on your door or window then it will stop any magical being from crossing the threshold."

"Hey mom." Scott said smiling. "Perhaps I could get this tattooed on my chest."

"We'll just start with your door I think." His mom said trying to temper his enthusiasm. "Thank you so much Mr Dresden." She seemed genuinely happy with what I had done for her. "let me show you…" She was cut off as the doorbell rang.

I was stood in the shadows of the hall out of sight as she opened the door, I could sense some sort of magic on the other side, something wholly wrong, the same way necromancy felt wrong.

"Hey Whitney, what's up?" I heard Mrs Sharp say to the blond on the doorstep.

"Scott left his backpack at school and thought I'd just drop it round." The blond said.

I moved forward letting my power trickle out slightly so that this thing would know what I was.

"Oh sorry I didn't know you had company." The blond said as she saw me come up behind Mrs Sharp.

"Mr Dresden, this is Scott's teacher Whitney Timmons." Mrs Sharp introduced us.

"I should probably be going." I said moving past Mrs Sharp.

"Oh let me pay for you cab." She pulled a wad of bills from her pocket. I maid the obligatory rejection before gratefully taking the money, at least I didn't have to walk home.

As I walked down the steps and got into the recently vacated cab I watched Whitney Timmons, Mrs Sharp invited her into the and as she was about to cross the threshold there was a snap of power from the ward and she backed off. I didn't see any more as the cab pulled away.

When I got back to my apartment the builders were taking a tea brake and the door didn't look any more attached than when I had left that morning. Molly was talking to someone on the phone.

"Sorry Harry's not here at the moment, can I take a. Oh wait he just got back hang on a second." She covered the receiver with her hand. "Hey Harry, Lt. Murphy for you." With that she handed over the receiver.

"Hey Mruph what's up." I asked.

"I've got a case that might be your thing." She said quickly.

"Would this be on the clock?" I asked.

"If I put the paperwork through then it'll mean a lot of hassle for me." She said I could hear the defeat in her voice. Hell I knew how deep trouble she was in with the brass.

"Perhaps you could do me a favour instead." I suggested thinking of my car.

"What is it Harry." She sounded annoyed, that's the Murphy I know and fantasize about.

"We'll my car is booted." I let her fill in the rest.

"Ok, I'll see to it, can you meet me at Denny's in half an hour?"

"Sure thing Murph." With that she hung up.

Half an hour later I was sad eating cold French fries in Denny's with Lt Karrin Murphy sat opposite me.

"So what have you got?" I asked.

"Victim completely skinned, no blood, fully clothed, no sign of forced entry, one minute she's going about her daily life next she's flayed giving me a headache." Murphy tossed some photos down onto the counter.

"Could be some sort of Mesoamerican thing, they always like to flay people, kind of a past time for them." I suggested. "I might be able to tell you more if I could see the crime scene."

"Ok, I'll try and get you in." She said and rose from the table

"Oh and Murph, I'm a bit strapped for cash at the moment." I waved to the plate of chips.

Grumbling about men in general she tossed some change onto the table and we left.

Dusk had fallen as we drove across town in silence, after a about ten minutes I couldn't take it anymore.

"Karrin, I'm really sorry I keep dragging you into all of this." I said finally to break the silence.

"It's not your fault Harry, it's the top brass, they've been putting me through the ringer for over a year now and it's getting to me." We finished the drive in a more companionable silence.

"Neighbour saw her come in last night, now her car is gone along with credit cards, no-one saw anyone leave, and no-one heard anything." Murphy said as we walked into a spacious top floor apartment.

As I moved toward the couch I felt the residue of dark magic, like something I had felt before but couldn't quite place.

"What time did she die?" I asked Murphy.

"About eleven why?" Murphy replied.

"What was her job?" I pressed walking over to the mantelpiece where a selection of photos were mounted in silver frames.

"She was a school teacher." Murphy informed me. I picked up one of the photos for a closer look. It was Scott's teacher Whitney Timmons.

"How did you know that?" Murphy jumped at me with the question.

"What?" I hadn't realised that I'd spoken.

"Her name, how did you know it?" She stood ready to jump me and beat the answer out of me.

"Hells bells!" I exclaimed. We've go to go. I need you to call something in for me."

"What's going on Harry?" She was trotting after me out of the apartment.

"Killing someone, walking around in there skin." I stared as we got into the car. "There are not many things that can do that. The way the skin was called is a giveaway."

"Harry you're babbling." Murphy snapped. "Where to."

"Sorry." I took a deep breath and rallied my thoughts, then I gave her the Sharp's address, and carried on as we drove. "It's a skin walker, a particular type of necromancy. They call the skin to them then they can use it to disguise themselves." By the time I stopped we were to the house. I jumped from the car without waiting for it to fully stop a sprinted for the front door.

"Sheryl!" I called trying the door, blissfully it was unlocked and I barrelled though into the hall. Sheryl was just sitting there on the floor.

"He's gone, they've taken him." She was mumbling the words over and over.

I dashed into Scott's room to find his bed empty and window open. Hells bells they had the boy!

The sun rose over lake Michigan while we searched the house, a ward had been scratched into the ceiling, not the same one that I had done on paper for them, a better one, this one would stop nearly anything cam into the house. I had tried feeling it for a sense of the power, but it gave nothing away, and the nagging voice in my head telling me that I had failed and the boy would die, wouldn't go away no matter how many times I tolled it to shut the hell up. My sub concuss can be a real git sometimes, if you'd met him you'd know.

I dropped my head from looking at the ward and began rolling my shoulders and stretching my neck out. That was when I noticed the feather. A large black feather, from a raven or crow maybe.

I snatched it up and maid for the door, on my way out I passed Karrin who was doling out coffees from one of those cardboard treys.

"What you got?" She asked.

"Maybe something, I need to go home and check it out. But look you've got find Whitney Timmons, put her face on TV or something, but tell people she's dangerous." I blurted making for the door.

"Harry, do you know what it's going to look like, putting out an APB on a dead person?" She protested as I ducked into the living room to find Sheryl.

"He tired to tell me." Sheryl sobbed as I sat down.

"You know what, were going to find him." I assured her. "Leave it to me." And then on to the rather awkward question. "Mrs Sharp, did either you or your husband ever have strange magical powers." Oh god she must have thought I'd gone mad.

"I don't know what your talking about." She said between sobs.

Ok time for a new tack. "Have you noticed birds hanging around lost, ravens or crows?"

"Yes." She sobbed. "Yes, ever since the day we brought him home."

I thanked her and left.

"Bob!" I shouted as I ducked into the basement of my apartment. "Bob!"

"There's no need to shout." Bob said as the skulls eyes flickered to life. "What do you want?"

"Ravens." I replied dumping the feather down on the table.

"Ok each to their own, do you want them roasted or backed?"

"Funny Bob, real funny. Scott was taken, and I found this." I gestured to the feather.

"Aha." Bob said his eye brightening.

"Aha what?" I pressed.

"The Raven Clan." Bob announced.

"Ok Bob tell me about the Raven Clan." I grabbed a pencil and pulled my notebook from a pocket.

"Ok, ok. The Raven Clan, Mercenaries, muscle for higher, stubborn, clever, very ruthless." Bob rolled off as I scribbled.

"What would the ravens want with the kid, it seems like they've been hanging around him forever." I asked.

"Waiting for an opportune moment." Bob postulated.

"Ok, what I don't get is why are they here? What can they offer that our skin walker can't? It's not like the skin walker lacks power."

"The protective rune wouldn't stop ravens, they're kind of ethereally neutral, neither good or bad, neither of this world or the never-never. They could pass the wards without any problem. Threshold's not an issue for them either."

"All well and good Bob, how can I find them?"

"Ah, they have similar habits to the birds, they follow migratory routs, always come back to the same nest."

My next thought was interrupted by banging on the door. I popped up the ladder and found Melissa banning on the plywood the builders had used as a stopgap while the door was still not hung.

I pulled the wood aside and ushered her in.

"What's wrong?" I asked pulling the wood back over the doorway.

"I'm in trouble, serious trouble." She blurted out.

"What? What is it?" I asked.

"I saw the news, Scott the missing boy and the teacher, that's the one you were talking about right? Tell me you have the boy. Tell me he's in one of the safe houses."

"No. What?" I blurted the wheels of my mind spinning trying to get traction enough to form a coherent sentence.

"Pleas, answer the question. Do you have the boy?" she snapped. "If you have him tell me."

"I don't have him, I was just about to go out and look." I replied getting annoyed with this.

"You really don't have him?" She sobered up in flash. "She said she'd kill me."

"The skin walker?" I asked.

"She came to me before you called, she wants the boy. He has the gift it just hasn't manifested it's self yet."

"Who did he get it from the mother or the father?"

"Harry, Scott's an orphan he was placed. Now where is he?"

Hells Bells, it was all falling into place now; the ravens, the skin walker, Scott.

"I thought your sink walker buddy might have him." I snapped brandishing my staff.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." She said and pushed me aside, before I knew what she was doing she had torn down the cloth ward that I had temporarily put up over the door while it was being fixed.

"Hells bells you idiot this place is wide open now." I yelled. Grabbing her. She twisted free and pulled on my shield bracelet the silver chain broke she tossed the talisman aside.

"Ok, you're still working for her." I'm quick these days.

"I'm sorry Harry I had no choice." That was when her skin peeled away.

I dropped to the floor beside Melissa and vomited. While I was spewing my guts all over the floor someone hit me over the back of the head and everything went dark.

When I came around I was in my lab, or rather suspended from the ceiling of my lab, at least I hadn't had a conversation with my sub concuss I usually seemed to end up doing that when I get hit on the head.

The skin walker was pacing in front of me, but talking to Bob.

"What did you do when Harry slaughtered your former owner just sit there inside that skull like you are now?"

"If you hurt him then you will pay." Bob said his eyes flickering blue.

"Oh and what are you going to do? Nothing, face it 'Bob' you're a shadow of your former self." She taunted. "If you want to save your master then tell me where is the boy?"

"We thought you had him." Bob retorted. "Nice skin by the way, you should keep that one. Verry firm…"

Bob was cut off when she snarled at him. "Obviously I don't have the boy otherwise why would I be here? Doing this?" Then she hit me.

"We don't know." Bob protested. She hit me again. God that woman was strong.

After I don't know how long I was cut down and the gag removed.

"If you tell me where the boy is then I'll go away." She promised.

"I would love to tell you. Relay I would." I groaned, then shrieked as the skin of my face was literally pealed away, god it hurt so much, yet for some reason I didn't black out.

"I'll tell you. Just stop." Bob said, the skull bouncing on it's shelf.

"Talk." She said blissfully leavening my face intact.

"The Ravens have him, we thought they were working for you."

"Where are they nesting?"

"We don't know, there's a feather on the table, you can use it to track them." Bob supplied.

She took the feather and left with only a parsing whisper.

"If it were up to me I'd be wearing you skin right now."

"If it were up to me?" I groaned.

"She must be working for somebody." Bob suggested. "But who, and why don't they want you dead?"

Both very good questions.

"What now boss?" Bob asked. "We have no leads. And she can find the eagles. May take her a bit of time I doubt her thaumaturgy is up to par."

"Actually we have one." I said and made for the phone.

"Muphy." Karrin picked up on the first ring.

"You know Scott was adopted?" I asked.

"Yeah, but no records." She anticipated my question.

"There must be something." I asked, common Murph you're my last lead.

"The boy was found outside an old abandoned Methodist church."

"Where, I need the address?" I fumbled my notepad out and wrote down the address.

"Thank you Murph you are an angle." With that I hung up. I had a church to get to.

"Bob." I called as I went back into the lab.

"Harry, I'm so sorry." He apologised again.

"It's ok Bob, but I your help."

"With what?"

"I need to make a Doom Box."

I spent the next twenty minutes being talked through the physical process, and in the end had to let Bob out to enchant the device himself.

I pulled the newly rescued Blue Beetle up in front of the church and blew a hole in the fence with a gout of fire from my staff, and then bolted up the stairs hoping I wasn't too late. As I reached the top I heard footsteps coming down and ducked into the shadows. A single raven in human form, a man in a long black coat came down, as he turned to go back up I grabbed him and slammed him into the wall pressing my staff against his neck.

"I want the boy." I demanded.

"You can't." The Raven chocked out. "He's in hiding."

"Yeah well if I can find him so can the skin walker." I retorted pressing harder.

"We can move, fly, find a new nest."

I grabbed him and flung him to the floor. "You can't shuffle him from safe house to safe house! It's wrong he needs a family."

"She can't protect him from what's coming. She'll just die."

Oh hells bells. "You mean your protecting him! From what the White council? You gave him to Sheryl in the first place?"

"Like a Kookoo's egg placed in another birds nest. Trick it into razing it as her own."

"Except you did too good a job, he loves her and she loves him. You can't take him away from that."

"But the skin walker?"

"You leave that to me." I pulled the Doom Box from my pocket.

The boy ran into my arms as soon as I appeared around the plastic sheeting.

"Hey kid, listen." I bent to talk to him. "These lot everything you've seen you mustn't tell anyone."

"If I tell people they'll think I'm nuts." Scott replied. I just hugged him harder. "Now go with these people they'll take you back to your mum."

"Your device, the Doom Box, will not be a permanent solution." The Raven leader said. "Others will come as his powers mature."

"We'll be ready for them." I replied.

I had been waiting only five minutes or so when the Skin walker arrived; calling out the boy, still pretending to be his teacher.

She came around the corner and saw me. "Where is the boy?"

"Maybe the Ravens took him." I hate having to bluff. "Or perhaps who ever you work for double crossed you and took him while you were beating me." I shrugged.

"That's not possible." She snapped.

"Right, 'cos you wouldn't pass that piece of information on just in case."

"Tell me where he is or suffer."

I really was quaking in my boots, my hand touched the Doom Box. I really hoped this would work.

"I want you to set up a meeting with your employer." Now I had a bargaining chip it was time to try and get to the bottom of all this. "I wan to make an offer."

"You want to make an offer." her voice held scorn as she spoke and it took all my willpower to stand my ground. "Make it to me."

"Fine. Tell me who your employer is, and stop chasing the kid and I'll give you this." I pulled Bob's Doom Box from my pocket and waved it at her. Hey eyes never left the box from the moment it left my pocket, she was entranced by it.

"You can feel it can't you." Hell I could feel it. "All that power is yours for the asking just tell me what I want to know."

"Give it to me." Her voice was breathy with excitement. "Then you'll get your answers."

"Ok, Catch." I tossed the small wooden box to her under hand, she caught it fumbling, I don't think she expected me to actually give it to her.

I started to back away as she razed it up reverently in front of her.

"Pop goes the Weasel." I mimicked what Bob had said days before as I pushed past the plastic sheeting, in my peripheral vision I could see the box start to glow, I sprinted for the stairs and hurtled down taking them tow at a time.

The eruption of raw power blew the top off the church, and knocked me on my ass on the sidewalk. I covered my head as flaming rubble rained down around me.

Murphy caught up with a couple of blocks away.

"Heard something about exploding churches on the radio and thought it might be you." She called jogging to catch up with me. "So what happened."

"Bottom line." I kept walking. "The kid is safe and the killer is gone."

"You killed her didn't you? When the church went boom?"

"Look, the kid is safe with his mother, isn't that enough?" I turned to face her.

"The kid was still adopted illegally." Muphy was a cop till the end, but I would expect nothing less of her.

"So, unless the birth parents show up, which I doubt it's not really a problem. She loves him and he loves her, isn't that what really matters."

Murphy didn't say anything she just kept walking leaving me in the light of a street lamp.

Later that week Mrs Sharp and Scott took me out for dinner to pay me back, it was a posh restaurant, Italian; I looked awfully out of place in my jeans and black shirt.

"Thank you for everything." Mrs Sharp said between mouthfuls of some pasts dish I had never heard of.

"It's fine." I assured her. "I need you to know something about Scott, he's special, relay special." She just nodded like you do when you want to humour the crazy person, or maybe I was just getting paranoid. "Look if anything strange, or stranger happens, just give me a call. I can help you."

When I got home I collapsed onto the couch and scratched mouse between the ears. "Looks like I have another life to look out for." I said Mouse just chuffed in agreement. "But then that's why I'm in the book."


End file.
